Artist's Fundraiser Thursday, May 15th
5-8pm -- for Lower Mississippi River Foundation -- at the Cutrer Higher Education Center in Clarksdale, MS -- to benefit Community Canoe -- and Summer Canoe Camp
May 15th Artist’s Fundraiser for LMRF Canoe Camp, Community Canoe: Thursday, May 15th, 5-8pm -- special once in a decade — Artist's Fundraiser for the Lower Mississipi River Foundation at the Cutrer Higher Education Center in Clarksdale, MS — in partnership with Coahoma Community College and Quapaw Canoe Company. Featuring artists Diane Washa, Robin Whitfield, Thad Lee, Rory Doyle, Amana D’ja, Lisa Webb, Yolande Van Heerden, Euphus Ruth, Jennifer Ruskey, Birney Imes, Michael Davidson, Joey Young, Church Goin Mule, Andre LeMoyne Miller, Robby Johnston, Pat Brown and "Driftwood Johnnie" John Ruskey. Live blues performance by the Delta Blues Princess (DBP)(Abee Hudson). Author Boyce Upholt will sign and donate Great River books to the cause. Gallery talks, food and music. Please join us in thanking community-minded artists who are all willing to donate 50% of art sales to foundation programming (which includes annual summer Canoe Camp and monthly Community Canoe). Note: some artists are making outright donations, 100% of proceeds going to foundation.
Live Music Performance by the Delta Blues Princess (DBP) ~ AKA Abee Miranda Hudson!
Ms. Abee Miranda Hudson is the Delta Blues Princess (DBP), and is donating an evening of her incredible musical talent as a headline feature of May 15th LMRF artist's fundraiser! Abee Hudson ~ “Delta Blues Princess” (DBP) ~ 9-Year-Old Blues Musician | Electric & Bass Guitarist | Singer | Drummer | Songwriter From the Mississippi Delta, rising blues musician Abee Hudson—better known on stage as DBP, the Delta Blues Princess—is already earning her crown in the blues world at just 9 years old. Hailing from the heart of the Delta, Abee was born with the blues in her blood and Mississippi soul in her sound. She trains under two Mississippi blues greats: Anthony “Big A” Sherrod at the legendary Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, and Keith “Prince of the Blues” Johnson at Minnie’s School of Music in Renova. Since then, Abee has performed across the South, building a name in cities with deep blues roots. Abee’s musical inspirations are as wide as they are soulful. Her favorite blues song, “The Thrill is Gone” by B.B. King, reflects the deep, expressive guitar style she’s already mastering. A modern soul influence comes from her favorite artist, Alicia Keys, whose emotional vocals inspire Abee’s singing and play. Despite her age, DBP already plays over 50 songs across electric and bass guitar. She also loves drumming, pecking on the keyboard, and singing, bringing full energy to every stage. She’s completed six guitar recitals at Minnie’s School of Music and continues to grow her sound with every performance. Whether she’s lighting up the stage in Jackson, trading licks in Clarksdale, or laying down bass grooves in Helena, Abee Hudson is bringing a fresh fire to the Delta blues tradition—proving that age is no limit when soul leads the way.
Visit instagram: Delta Blues Princess
Boyce Upholt: Great River
Boyce Upholt is a “nature critic” whose writing probes the relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world, especially in the U.S. South. Boyce grew up in the Connecticut suburbs and holds a bachelor’s degree from Haverford College and an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. He moved to the Mississippi Delta in 2009, where he discovered an unexpected wilderness amid an agricultural empire: the Mississippi River, which for hundreds of miles offers a corridor of islands and sandbars and wetland forests, with no settlement or development. An obsession with how this wild place came to persist, despite so much change and engineering, inspired a wider interest in the strange nature of “nature” itself—this thing that we call separate but are really a part of. Boyce’s work ranges from straightforward journalism and science writing to travel writing that invites readers to better connect with the “more-than-human” world. His work has been published in the Atlantic, National Geographic, the Oxford American, and Virginia Quarterly Review, among other publications. His work has been recognized with a James Beard Award for investigative journalism and the Willie Morris Award for Southern Writing. His stories have been noted in the Best American Science & Nature and Best American Nonrequired Reading series. Boyce lives in New Orleans. Visit website: Boyce Upholt
Artists & their Artwork:
In reverse alphabetical order: Joey Young, Robin Whitfield, Lisa Webb, Diane Washa, Yolande Van Heerden, Euphus Ruth, John Ruskey, Jennifer Ruskey, Church Goin Mule, Andre Miller, Thad Lee, Robby Johnston, Birney Imes, Rory Doyle, Amana D’Jo, Michael Davidson, and Pat Brown. Thank you artists! See below for artwork photo and bio of each:
Joey Young
Joey Young’s artistic journey is deeply intertwined with the landscapes, characters, and culture of the Mississippi Delta. Originally from Charleston, Mississippi, in Tallahatchie County, Young’s early life was marked by a profound interest in art and music, though opportunities for creative expression were limited in his school years. It wasn’t until high school that art began to play a significant role in his life, ultimately influencing his decision to become an art teacher—a path that would allow him to nurture the same creative spark in others that had been ignited in him. Young’s formal education in art began at Northwest Community College, where he was profoundly influenced by his teacher, Lane Tutor. He later transferred to Delta State University, double majoring in Art Education and Ceramics/Painting, and graduating in 2005. His time at Delta State, under the mentorship of Ky Johnston, solidified his commitment to both creating art and teaching it. Joe Young’s work is deeply inspired by the Southern landscapes and the people who inhabit them. His connection to Clarksdale and the Delta is palpable in every piece he creates. While he once thought he needed to leave the region to find inspiration, he has come to realize that everything he sought was right where he started. Today, Young hopes to inspire future creatives to see the richness of the Delta and to build their lives and careers in this vibrant region, just as he has done. Visit Website: Joey Young
Robin Whitfield
Robin Whitfield is a Mississippi artist whose mission is to connect to nature and help others do the same. Her creative work begins with observations of nature in rivers, swamps and forests. Her paintings are poetic explorations of visual and ecological relationships. Robin works on paper with traditional watercolors or directly with foraged plant & mineral pigments. Robin graduated from Delta State University in 1996 with a BFA in painting. She gives creative workshops and exhibits her work where art, nature and conservation overlap. In 2018 she founded the non-profit Friends of Chakchiuma Swamp to manage and interpret Lee Tartt Nature Preserve located near her downtown studio. She is currently serving as executive director. Robin Whitfield lives and works from her studio in Grenada, Mississippi. www.robinwhitfield.com.
Lisa Webb
Lisa Webb: Greetings from Mississippi and welcome to my website! I hope you enjoy browsing through my collection of handmade pottery! The pieces are both decorative and functional and perfect for any occasion as well as gift giving. Every piece is unique and handmade in the Mississippi Delta! Variations in color/size/texture may occur. All of my pieces are food and dishwasher safe (except for the ones labeled non-food safe). Hand washing is recommended. I appreciate you as a customer and I hope you will visit my website many times in the future. Thank you so much for your business! It is much appreciated! Fondly, India Meets Mississippi Pottery Visit website: Lisa Webb
Diane Washa
Diane Washa is an award-winning painter who takes inspiration from the changing landscapes she has had in view since road trips through out North America with her family as a child. Washa creates paintings in an intriguingly abstract style that is rich in detail. She most often works en plein air. Painting in sight of the prairies, streams, rivers and bluffs of Wisconsin's countryside - and the sweep of dramatic skies overhead - Washa's brush captures the movement of color and light, time and place. In still life studies, the artist sometimes extracts a single intimate element of the landscape that catches her eye. Washa came late to her now-productive life as an artist. A business executive by day, she got more serious about her life-long passion for painting in 2005. Several years later, Washa was exhibiting in galleries and at art exhibitions. She has exhibited in dozens of art shows, including as a featured artist. Washa has a degree in fine art from Milton College and an MBA from the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater. She continues her quest to learn and grow in her art through studies with a number of admired painters and is part of a network of artists dedicated to the en plein air approach. Experimentation excites Washa's art. Her continuing education in painting also includes working side-by-side artists doing nonrepresentational images in oil. Visit website: Diane Washa
Yolande Van Heerden
Yolande Van Heerden is a fiber artist & sewing arts instructor living in Greenwood Mississippi since 2011. As a native of South Africa, she draws her inspiration through my colorful cultural heritage to create narrative items from a variety of story bags, free form quilts, cards, placemats and more. Firmly entrenched in her home along the banks of the Yazoo River, Yolande teaches art classes, primarily for children, from what she calls “The Littlest Littles” up to classes for high schoolers, with occasional Grown Folks Art Nights thrown in for good measure. She operates her craft and clothing design business, Tomboy Art, from a studio in our downtown’s historic district. About five years ago, she partnered with ArtPlace Mississippi, a non-profit community education center, to offer sewing workshops for kids and teens. Then, she took on costume design classes for The Greenwood Shakespeare Project, a five-week camp for seventh through twelfth graders, sponsored by ArtPlace and Greenwood Little Theater. Yolande also shares her talents with the Greenwood Mentoring Group, The Baptist Town Community Center, Threadgill Elementary School, and the Depot Senior Citizen Center. Stitching and storytelling are natural links between South Africa and Mississippi for Yolande. The unmistakable similarities of the work of Delta embroiders, like Ethel Wright Mohamed and that of the Intuthuko Sewing Group outside Johannesburg brings her two home bases together. “Sewing is all about storytelling for me,” she says. “Whether it is picking out fabrics that tell a bit about a place or time that I am using in a quilt or the cut of a garment being inspired by a fabric’s print, it is the same desire to share an experience through textiles.” Visit website: Yolande Van Heerden
Euphus Ruth
Euphus Ruth grew up in Bruce Mississippi. After college in Memphis, he settled in the Mississippi Delta town of Greenville where he worked for a public utility. His interest in photography started as a teenager. Now retired, Ruth is a full-time photographer. He practices collodion and film photography using large and ultra-large format vintage cameras and lenses. His subject matter is primarily older architecture, cemeteries, cityscapes, and landscapes. He returns to the same places to experience and photograph the change brought on by man and nature. Visit website: Euphus Ruth
Driftwood Johnnie (John Ruskey)
"Driftwood Johnnie" John Ruskey is a worker bee in the colony of his Queen, the Mississippi River. He builds voyageur style canoes for use on the wild waters of the Lower Mississippi River, and is one of the most experienced builders of dugout canoes in the country. In 1998/99 John apprenticed to master canoe builder Ralph Frese in the construction of his first cypress strip voyageur canoe, The Ladybug 27’ cypress strip voyageur canoe. In 2007 Chinook elder & master canoe builder George Lagergren (94y/o) asked John to renovate 2 of his traditional Chinook dugouts which are now ceremonially housed in tribal headquarters, Wilapa Bay Washington. In the past 20 years he has built dozens of big canoes, both dugouts and strippers, each a unique and functional work of art that now spend their lives working the Mississippi River. Visit website: "Driftwood Johnnie" John Ruskey
Jennifer Ruskey
Jennifer Ruskey is multi-talented artist recently retired art teacher of over 30 years from Coahoma County High School, Clarksdale, MS, as well as New Mexico and Colorado. Jennifer graduated from the University of Denver Fine Arts program, and continues her artwork with sculpture, painting, ceramics, and multi-media.
Andre LeMoyne Miller
As an instructor with over 30 years of teaching experience, Memphis artist Andre LeMoyne Miller believes the natural progression of the individual soul is to create. After a long career in education, Andre decided to focus full-time on his passion. As an illustrator, Andre primarily seeks to produce and create images that his clients find awe-inspiring and successful. While he uses a variety of materials and processes, he is most adept at using acrylic paints and graphite. Today, his originals and reproductions can be found across Asia, Europe, and the United States. Andre’s work most often takes a critical view of social, political, and cultural issues, from the “Black Experience” in America. He finds himself deconstructing—destroying if necessary—traditional, unprovocative images and replacing them with more honest treatments. Andre’s work has engaged in subjects as diverse as the Civil Rights Movement, Delta blues and jazz music, cultural imagery, and a series dedicated to the historical Orange Mound community in Memphis, Tennessee. In 2023, Andre Miller completed work on his three-year-long acrylic-on-canvas series paying homage to Robert Johnson. “The Redemption of a Delta Bluesman: Robert Johnson,” is currently debuting at the Delta Cultural Center in Helena, Arkansas from January-April 2025, and consists of 29 paintings that focus on the life and legacy of the fabled musician known as the “King of the Delta Blues.” Visit website Andre LeMoyne Miller
Thad Lee
Thad Lee, born 1974, is an award-winning filmmaker, a writer of essays, screenplays, and poetry, and a versatile photographer. He earned English and Philosophy degrees from the University of Mississippi and an MFA in Screenwriting from the University of New Orleans. His education includes a poetry workshop in Italy and film studies in Los Angeles, New York, and Spain. Thad’s current nature photographs are part of a series called Murmurations created in conversation with his wife Carlyle’s paintings about their shared experiences in the landscape. By immersing his lens in layers of growth, Thad examines abstract patterns in the natural world. His photographs record veils and blots of color alongside clear and intricate details. The result is an enchanting marriage of the familiar with the mysterious. Thad’s film October won Best Short Film at the inaugural Oxford Film Festival in 2003. In 2020, his adaptation of a short story by Stephen King called “All That You Love Will Be Carried Away” was selected by 47 film festivals, winning honors at 29 of them. In 2023, Thad completed a documentary about photographers Maude Schuyler Clay and Langdon Clay called Two Lives in Photography that is currently being aired on Mississippi Public Broadcasting. Thad initially developed his on-going series of Moon Paintings as props after writing a screenplay set in a glass hotel on the moon. Inspired by Jackson Pollock’s action paintings, the Moon Paintings are photographs painted with light. To make them, Thad sets a long exposure in low-light and moves his camera with bold gestures. The Moon Paintings are varied, colorful, and completely abstract. Thad was honored by the Mississippi Arts Commission in 2021 with an Artist’s Fellowship in Media Arts. He was also selected by the Dixon Gallery and Gardens in 2023 to be part of the inaugural group of Artists in Residence in Wilson, Arkansas. Thad’s photographs have been exhibited by Southside Gallery in Oxford, Spalding Nix Fine Art in Atlanta, the University of Mississippi Museum, the Mississippi Museum of Art, and the Dixon Gallery and Gardens. He lives with his visual-artist wife Carlyle Wolfe Lee and infant son Luke in Oxford, Mississippi. Visit website Thad Lee
Robby Johnston
Robby Johnston is an up-and-comng Memphis-based self-taught artist, who works mostly in acrylics, but also explores multi-media and other mediums. Robby paints spiritual surrealistic Delta landscapes. “I’ve always been a Delta artist,” he says. “It’s a land of beautiful sunrises and sunsets, history, pain and suffering, but also, it’s a hotbed for creativity.” Johnston picked up his first paintbrush some 12 years ago. “It was a little bit of a midlife crisis, really just trying to find my voice, and, I don’t know, I just started painting. … I’m really coming into the realization that it’s something I want to try to transition into full-time.” Visit news story: Robby Johnston
Birney Imes
Birney Imes III was born in 1951 in Columbus, Mississippi. His father, Vinton Birney Imes, Jr., owned the town newspaper, The Commercial Dispatch. His mother is Nancy McClanahan Imes. He attended desegregated public schools in Columbus and graduated from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History in 1973. Imes began photographing after graduation from college and is largely self-taught. In the mid-70s, he worked as a photographer for his family's newspaper in his hometown of Columbus. Later, he opened his own studio above the Princess Theater in Columbus. Along with his personal work, Imes shot commercial work for local clients and took assignments for magazines like Rolling Stone, The Village Voice and Texas Monthly. Drawing inspiration from the photographs of other Southern artists like Eudora Welty and William Eggleston, his work concentrates on the American South, especially blacks in the Mississippi Delta. Imes photographs are included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, both in New York City; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris and numerous museum and private collections in the United States. His work has been exhibited widely in solo and group shows, including The Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1991 University Press of Mississippi published "Juke Joint," the first of Imes' three books. University Press followed "Juke Joint" with the 1994 publication of "Whispering Pines." That same year Smithsonian Press published a collection of his black and white work, "Partial to Home." Visit wikipedia: Birney Imes
Rory Doyle
Rory Doyle is a working photographer based in Cleveland, Mississippi in the rural Mississippi Delta. Born and raised in Maine, Doyle studied journalism at St. Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont. In 2009, he moved to Mississippi to pursue a master’s degree at Delta State University. Doyle has remained committed to photographing Mississippi and the South, with a particular focus on sharing stories from the Delta. He was a 2018 and 2023 Visual Artist Fellow through the Mississippi Arts Commission and National Endowment for the Arts. He won the 16th Annual Smithsonian Photo Contest in 2019, the 2019 Southern Prize from the South Arts organization, the 2019 Zeiss Photography Award, and the 2019 ZEKE Award for Documentary Photography. Working for The New York Times, in partnership with Mississippi Today, Doyle photographed “Unfettered Power: Mississippi Sheriffs,” an investigation project named a finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. The reportage prompted federal investigations and led to state legislation aimed at limiting the power of sheriffs. Doyle has exhibited in New York, London, Atlanta, Mississippi and beyond. His work has been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, ProPublica, ESPN, The Nature Conservancy, The Guardian, CNN, Huff Post and numerous outlets. He is a member of the National Press Photographers Association. Visit Website: Rory Doyle
Church Goin Mule
Church Goin Mule is a southern artist who was born and raised across the south, her kinfolk came from the mountains, and she keeps her studio in the Mississippi delta today. Church Goin Mule's work is a memory jug, a death-vase mash of the collective southern past, pearls and rusted nails, song and story, lore and loss. The mule is our common ground, the creature that every man, woman and child of all origin knew, in a time before t-models and tractors. In a time of remarkable and perhaps increasing polarity, the mule is our grounding rod, pointing to not a better past, but a different one. The blues was born behind a plowing mule. Stories and poems, jokes and songs were prolific about the south's four legged machine. Like much of our history, it's been forgotten and framed to tell a different tale. That story is a well known one, of glory and triumph. Our true story, our true flag is the white one of surrender, and of hard work, poverty and loss. The mule was the first hybrid and he was always there, able to work harder, live longer, eat less. He stood beside moonshiners, levee builders, cotton farmers, timber-haulers, oil drillers, sugar cane men. He worked six days and brought his folks to church and town on the seventh. Visit website: Church Goin Mule
[Amana D’ja artwork image to be added later]
Amana D’ja
Amana D'ja Fashion & Designs! A Fashion brand that focuses on Vintage Clothing, Upcycled Designs, Custom Designs & Personal Styling! Visit website: Amana D'ja
Michael Davidson
Michael Davidson Mississippi Stone Guild/ Stone mason to Universal Hall 1976-1983; Herbal apothecary/ Conservator stone mason /Cathedral St John the Divine NYC/American Embassies /Statue of Liberty/ /Polarity Therapist /Heart Math trainer / Wife Belinda Stewart principal BSA architects / Daughter Mary /Grand baby Anniston Leigh / Horse whisperer /Lives on 100 yr old horse farm Walthall Mississippi Areas of involvement with the Findhorn Foundation Community: Apothecary, Stonemasonry, Healing Well restoration and recovery of documented local Healing wells, Theater, Erraid Transport, Right hand sink/ Community leadership: one of the stonemasons of the Universal Hall 1976-1983 Experience in the community affected your work in the world: Certified heart math trainer / - Conservator for Historic buildings and monuments / Europe N. Africa / Director of Restoration Cathedral St John NewYork / project restoration stone mason manager/ Paris /NY for many museums and State Capitals including Carnegie Hall ; Ellis Island Grand Central Station ; Statue of Liberty / overseas projects Argentina Greece, Polarity therapist with degree work in Sound Therapy, Horse whisperer practitioner, Specific use of calibrated tuning forks for block energy, Consultant to engineers and architects, Heart ambassador with a healing studio in my home Visit website: Michael Davidson
Pat Brown
Pat Brown is a long-ago transplant to the Delta via Germany, Texas, and Oklahoma. A practicing artist and former art department professor and gallery director at Delta State University in Cleveland Mississippi teaching Art History, Drawing, and all fiber media courses from weaving to papermaking to dyeing, I still play in all these mediums. As a recipient of two Mississippi Arts Commission Artist's Fellowships and a UGA Artist's Fellowship to study indigo dyeing in Kyoto, Japan, these opportunities have enhanced my practice. I've taught and researched in Central and South America, Japan, Turkey, and one day, will go to India. A dye-garden maker, a bird listener, reader, foodie, and a conflicted mind between Minimalist style and Bohemian style, I am a great fan of the present chapter of life. I exhibit regularly in the region and nationally. Visit Website FB page for Wetherbee House
Lower Mississippi River Dispatch No. 972 "Voice of the Lower Mississippi River"
Big Canoes, Full Moon, Mouth of the Arkansas River, 18 x 24 watercolor, John Ruskey
A few seats still open: Full Mother’s Day Dewberry Moon — Sunday May 11th, 3-10pm
Location: Meet at Quapaw Canoe Company, 291 Sunflower Ave, Clarksdale, MS. We will drive in personal vehicles from there to the launch point on the Mississippi River. (~25min drive) Meet Time: 3pm End Time: 9-10pm back in town What to bring: Water bottle, warm clothes, hat, head lamp, flashlight. Food: Potluck Supper: Pack whatever you want share! Quapaw will provide tables, stools, enamel plates, silverware, and hot water for coffee or tea. Price: $150 per person. We accept cash, check, PayPal, or Venmo. Payment required in advance to secure a spot.
